Blinds & Shutters - issue 1/2023

VENETIAN
Cool combination
Stuart Wilson at
Semper Blinds has
combined Venitian
and cellular blinds
Acouple of years ago I had the idea of
combining a venetian blind with a cellular
perfect fit blind, mainly due to the fact
that we heard customers saying that venetian
perfect fits were good but weren’t blackout, or
that cellular perfect fits were great for blackout,
but they were either closed or opened.
With this challenge I set about trying to figure it
out, one was to have the venetian blind at the top
and the cellular blind coming up from the bottom
and at the time this was the best idea of a bad
bunch (roughly eight different ideas) the topdown
bottom-up design was poor due to the fact
you had two large bars across the middle still
allowing light through, the Semper Hybrid was
then shelved for while till I could think of a better
solution.
Then finally with the help from Benthin and
their wide range of components, I found the
centre bar I was after. This bar was used in
numerous blind configurations but never with the
above idea. I got the blinds fitted together roughly
but found the overall weight of the blind made it
almost unusable, yet it did resemble the idea I had
in my head originally. The main design of the blind
would have the venetian blind at the top and then
the cellular blind attached to the venetian via the
Benthin centre bar. This would then allow
complete independent movement of the two
blinds as well as a fully operational venetian blind
with its tilt option.
While working on another project I was
designing, I had created a new cording system that
gave a lot more tension in the cord and blind
mechanism without overstressing either the blind
itself or the spring. I adapted it to the newly name
“Semper Hybrid” which solved the issue of the
weight of combined blinds as well as retaining the
smooth sliding motion Benthin systems give to the
customer.
Once I got it working on the typical door size, I
was confident it would work on other sizes, so the
next step was to get Semper Hybrid design
protected via a design right, and at the same time I
also got the freehang version of the blind
protected as well, this version allows the user to
operate the two blinds like the Semper Hybrid
perfect fit version but as a freehang with standard
cord pulls.
The next stage is to fully test the other sizes
with a view to launch to my trading network in
Feb 2023, the response has been really positive
even without properly launching it with two
possible office blocks being tendered as they have
been looking for a solution to allow the staff
control the light in their offices while having the
ability to make the bottom section blackout, so
they didn’t get baked at their computers during
the summer months.
For more information, please email me at
semperblinds@gmail.com
36 Blinds & Shutters • ISSUE ONE 2023